IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME

LINES IN A LEAF...

Nobody ever warned me about pictures, so for many years now, I have been very fond of them and thought them to be trustworthy. I'd often hide myself away, searching for lost time in old smiles in old pictures. I'd set the pictures and place my mirrors facing one another so I could see from every angle as I tried to copy a pose or another from years back and maybe recollect what it might have felt like to be me back then. Many, many mes sprawled on the floor. Many, many smiles unaccounted for. Many, many faceless beings staring back at me in my reflections. When the ten year old me smiled, from behind a book,her legs tucked into each other and her head laid on the bed rest,her bouncy dark hair falling on her shoulders, her brown eyes gleaming from the flash of the camera light, we did too, me and my reflections, only my dark hair was now hiding in delicate weaves of purple attachment that stood atop my head in a messy bun. I have learnt to hide my hair in weaves because one time, I cut it too low, another time, I combed peroxide through it. So locking them away in these weaves helps me lock away the desperation I might feel to do something ridiculous to it again but I still let the weaves fall, at least tonight. I tuck my legs into each other and watch in the mirror as I held my book and let my now dark weaves( because of the dim light) fall on my shoulders. I try to imagine what I must have been thinking about or feeling like in that picture until the sound of glass shattering on the floor interrupted my thoughts and my search, so I stood up to pick pieces of myself that were now laying on the ground when the picture of my father which he had sent to me as a reply to my letter, fell on the floor, except now it was turned upside down on the floor and I could see writing scribbled on its back.

Dear Skye

           You may search and search for the paper on which I wrote back to you but you will eventually find that I have written on the back of this picture. "A picture is worth a thousand words", and I do hope this picture answers all your questions which is why I wrote on its back. I am sorry too, for sending a mugshot of myself, must not be a flattering first impression but it is all I have, all I could lay my hands on. No, you do not have a face, do not bother searching, you will continue to furrow and assume, it is your superpower,you will continue to be as you are expected and as you wish. What is fun about faces? Yes I do have a face but you never see it because that is not where I belong. Before now I'd felt like an extension of another person, as if I was living a life which was no more than the history of another person but now, I feel different, like I have cut myself away from that person's history and you may now see me,in this picture because I am where I belong, behind rusty bars and giant fences. When you were born, I held you in my hands, you were covered in blood and I saw you for the first time, but when the blood and the filth was washed off you, you changed, I almost couldn't fathom it too, so I dedicated my time to taking pictures of you , capturing every moment of your metamorphosis, I am greatly hurt that you feel less because of this. It must be confusing, it must be a lot for you to understand. Your mother is right, I fought for my country, marched for my kind, until I let it all get to me, like you are doing, I watched the bullets I had fired gnaw at my senses,but unlike you, I couldn't forget, the faces of innocent men and children that I killed, their pleas, and memories of how life had escaped their bodies. I didn't forget any of it so I carried the weight of my guilt on my own back and sometimes I felt myself drowning and drowning but nobody seemed to notice. So I went for a walk, it helped, cleared my head a bit, I was armed, I was always constantly followed and my hands were always trembling. A soldier must never be caught off guard and at that moment I could hear the enemy approaching so I shot into the air and it happened,the light, dissolving me into the shadows,like you said ,and I now find myself here, where I belong. I am a kamikaze soldier, but I am still fighting in the sea each day, to get by. I won't decide if you should be proud of me but I want you to guard your superpower, do not lose yourself in your mind.

                                          Love,

                                          Father.

LOST TIME

All my life I thought people could only smile in pictures, that people would hate to see themselves on paper if they weren't expressing utmost happiness and satisfaction.That the click and flash of the camera drowned out their sadness and in that split second,they were soon to forget everything that might have them worried, and wear the happiest grin they could find,that was the only beauty of people on paper . That was what I thought, until well,I met my father.

  He never showed in pictures. The light of the camera was too light for his dark skin or the other people were too light, eitherways there was always something with his skin that made him dissolve into the shadows in every picture , but his smile never does, his perfect white teeth,stood firmly in contrast with his skin and shone brightly in the light,so I never missed it. That was all I had left of him,his smile and I'd beside myself with the trouble of trying to get an idea of what he might have been like. Mother said he took all my pictures,the ones I'm always trying to be like, that is why I do it, trying to relive what it might have felt like to be me and to have him take pictures of that me, maybe then I could finally see what he was like. Mother said I looked just like him but I wasn't convinced she was happy about it.

       Losing a parent to death or divorce is very different from losing one to the shackles of imprisonment. People do not enshroud you or try to calm you, especially when you are the child and not the mother, they just leave you there, contemplating showing love or leaving you be with their contempt masked pity faces, there's no party or prayer,in fact you wish your neighbors didn't witness your father getting carted away and they stare, they stare everytime and whispered to each other in hushed tones as you both pass by. The little people that come by only come cause they care about your mother but they do not ever mention your father, so you grow up, never dare to ask what the story might have been, you exist watching it gnaw at your being and consuming your mind like a slow drip of acid. One night, you do not find yourself in mirrors, another, you do not have a face. Nobody notices, they assume and assume the child is too ignorant, she mustn't know and she mustn't be asked, so they hate and they love, and I furrow between layers, deciding which impostor to be today, which mask to put on, while the real me is only ever a mystery,the thin air between earth and the sky,that is never seen but felt, a distant memory, everything you can't forget but can't remember.

THE SEARCH FOR LOST TIME

  I wrote to my father sometime back, for the first time in my life, he only replied me with his mugshot, and although I finally saw what he was like, I had still hoped he wrote back, soI could read what he felt like impressed onto paper. After finding his writing scribbled on the picture, I read what I had written to him, searching for what we have both lost in time.

Dear Father,

     Do you have a face? Do I have a face?

I have imagined that the first time I'd ever write to you, I'd tell you everything that has happened in the last 16 years, my school ,my hair, everything but I am sorry, my memory fails me and everything seems so distant, like a dream you can't remember. Like you, and me,I do not remember you, you always dissolved into the shadows but I do remember your smile, I see it everytime. I will fail to believe I am like you, Mother says you are brave, you defended our country in battles and our kind in protests,she says you are like that kamikaze Japanese soldier who landed in the sea instead of blowing up a whole community. I'd wonder if in that little moment before landing in the sea, if you ever thought of your little family at home, your little daughter and your wife,mother is proud of you but I do not know if I am. Mother is well, she is in fact studying for law school, "there is no justice", she says often but I am scared she will end up like you, kamikaze, never actually thinking of me. Do not get me wrong, she cares for me, she nurtures me. Recently, I developed a serious recurring abdominal pain, she took me to the doctor, again and again, and she made me soup but the pain did not stop. "Phantom pain can be triggered by emotional situations", I had read in a book so I stopped complaining about the pain, I understood, which is why I am writing to you. Mother never speaks of you, she only sings your praises in phrases, and I do not ask so we let stories of you hang between us like loose thread, both of us refusing to pull on it.

                                       Yours faithfully,

                                         Skye.